We look before and after,
And sigh for what is not.
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those
that tell of saddest thought [ Shelley ]

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never. [ Percy ]

Here's a sigh for those who love me,
And a smile for those who hate,
And whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate. [ Byron ]

The wind breath'd soft a lover's sigh,
And, oft renew'd, seem'd oft to die
With breathless pause between,
O who, with speech of war and woes,
Would wish to break the soft repose
Of such enchanting scene! [ Scott ]

A melancholy sound is in the air,
A deep sigh in the distance, a shrill wail
Around my dwelling. 'Tis the Wind of night [ William Cullen Bryant ]

Love has made its best interpreter a sigh. [ Byron ]

Had sigh'd to many, though he loved but one. [ Byron ]

Remorse is the last sigh of expiring virtue. [ La Beaumelle ]

I fled, and cried out Death!
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded Death. [ Milton ]

The first sigh of love is the last of wisdom.

Trade hardly deems the busy day begun,
Till his keen eye along the sheet has run;
The blooming daughter throws her needle by.
And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh;
While the grave mother puts her glasses on.
And gives a tear to some old crony gone.
The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down,
To know what last new folly fills the town;
Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things.
The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings. [ Sprague ]

O happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whatever thy name;
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh
For which we bear to live, or dare to die. [ Pope ]

Whenever he speaks, Heaven, how the listening throng
Dwell on the melting music of his tongue!
His arguments are emblems of his mien,
Mild but not faint, and forcing, though serene:
And when the power of eloquence he'd try,
Here lightning strikes you, there soft breezes sigh. [ Garth ]

That we would do,
We should do when we would; for this "would" changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift's sigh,
That hurts by easing. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]

He gave a deep sigh; I saw the iron enter into his soul. [ Sterne ]

God is an unutterable sigh planted in the depth of the soul. [ Jean Paul ]

The human heart has a sigh lonelier than the cry of the bittern. [ W. R. Alger ]

Novels teach the youthful mind to sigh after happiness that never existed. [ Goldsmith ]

Ah! the spendthrift, love: it gives all and everything with the first sigh! [ Madame de Genlis ]

'Tis the fate of the noblest soul to sigh vainly for a reflection of itself. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

So live, that thy young and glowing breast can think of death without a sigh. [ Eliza Cook ]

There is a chord in every human heart that has a sigh in it if touched aright. [ Ouida ]

A sigh, a look, a word from your lips, that is the ambition of a heart like mine. [ Racine ]

Hope is so sweet with its golden wings, that, at his last sigh, man still implores it. [ De la Pena ]

Man has here two and a half minutes, - one to smile, one to sigh, and half of one to love; for in the midst of this minute he dies. [ Richter ]

Many persons sigh for death when it seems far off, but the inclination vanishes when the boat upsets, or the locomotive runs off the track, or the measles set it. [ T. W. Higginson ]

Christ and His cross are not separable in this life, howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven's door, for there is no house-room for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble cannot find lodging there. [ Rutherford ]

He that can keep handsomely within rules, and support the carriage of a companion to his mistress, is much more likely to prevail than he who lets her see the whole relish of his life depends upon her. If possible, therefore, divert your mistress rather than sigh for her. [ Steele ]

Why doth Fate, that often bestows thousands of souls on a conqueror or tyrant, to be the sport of his passions, so often deny to the tenderest and most feeling hearts one kindred one on which to lavish their affections? Why is it that Love must so often sigh in vain for an object, and Hate never? [ Richter ]

Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood. [ Rogers ]